Knowing Systems and the Environment 39and functional nature of ecosystems in equilibrium was later replaced by the more
cybernetic notions of dynamic equilibria and steady states (Patten, 1959) in which
a much clearer distinction was made between the ecosystem and its environment.
Other vital concepts that this view of functional organizational integrity permitted
was the possibility of the adaptation of the whole ecosystem with respect to changes
in its environment as well as its evolution as a whole entity as a function of changes
in the diversity both of its parts and of the pattern of interrelationships between
them. Thus while it became possible to talk sensibly of both stability and resilience
of ecosystems as prerequisite properties for adaptation in turbulent environments
(Holling, 1973), it also made sense to talk of their capacity to evolve as whole,
integrated entities, even in the absence of any clear empirical evidence that this
indeed did occur in actuality.
While having adaptive capabilities of this type, such self-organizing systems
are generally regarded as being very complex in their organization and in the spec-
trum of their interrelationships with the environments in which they are embed-
ded and with which they interact. They can be so complex and dynamic in fact,
that they can ‘move’ or be forced to positions that are far from equilibrium (Gleik,
1987), in which state they are regarded as being on the ‘edge of chaos’ where a
small change in one component of the system can result in greatly amplified reac-
tions elsewhere in the system. This can lead either to the demise of such systems or
to the emergence of totally different systems (Stacey, 1996). Of even greater sig-
nificance in this context, is the possibility, promoted by hierarchy and panarchy
theorists, that entire hierarchies of systems can be affected under conditions where
the complexity of any system within them becomes so great that it overwhelms
existing controls across the entire hierarchy (Levins, 1973) with potentially disas-
trous results. Importantly it has been claimed that these ‘natural’ phenomena have
potentially as much significance to hierarchies of human organizations and ‘social
systems’ as they do for the ecosystems and hierarchies of nature (Wheatley, 1992).
Indeed it was an economist who was to add considerable rigour to GST with his
conceptualization of a nine-level hierarchical typology of complexity (Boulding,
1956), that ranged from static structures and frameworks that can be studied,
through to transcendental systems which are the realm of ‘inescapable unknowa-
bles’. Boulding’s other considerable contribution was to argue that GST could be
used for ordering different fields of study through a focus on the ‘individual unit
of behavior’ in addition to its aim of developing a theory of very general principles,
which, as Jackson (2000) observes, was the primary concern of von Bertalanffy.
The key feature of a general systems theory which allows this submission is the
principle of isomorphism from which many have been able to conclude that what
is so for ‘natural systems’ must be equally so for ‘social systems’. And thus all that
has been written above with regard to the nature and behavioral characteristics of
living systems has been transposed in one form or another over the years, to apply
to the nature and dynamics of human organizations and societies: these are, as the
logic goes, composed of human beings which are, in turn, ‘living systems’ and
much effort has been put into the application of systems approaches to human